Good that lies beyond the fringe

Jewish Chronicle, January 20 2006

This is about a letter. The epistle (which was published in last week’s JC), was written by a chap called Bryan from Manchester. Bryan had been to the Limmud event in Nottingham with his family and had had a great time. But there are great times and good times, and Bryan obviously felt the need to reassure his more Orthodox acquaintances that Limmud had been a properly Jewish affair. So, being a nice man, Bryan told friends and readers that it was indeed formidably kosher. There was even, at Nottingham, “something for Jews on the fringes of Judaism”.

As evidence of this he told of a “young woman, maybe 26” who had got up to speak in the closing session, and told the room how much she had enjoyed the conference. Concerning her, Bryan added this slightly triumphant clincher, “I felt she may have been close to intermarrying - but not any more. She had realised that there were too many eligible Jewish men around to do that!“ Wahay!

For Bryan this decision of the young woman - who I will call Ella - is straightforwardly good. But before we smilingly agree with him, we have to deal with the fact that there is a big something missing from his consideration - something that can perhaps be added here. Since no-one can be close to marriage - let alone inter-marriage - purely in the abstract (as in “I think I‘ll get married this year, better find someone”) I would argue that we are entitled to push on with Bryan’s imagined prospective wedding.

So let us suppose that 26 year-old Ella did indeed have a person in mind, an inamorato, who we will call Max. Presuming that Ella was not a fantasist let us further hypothesise that Max and Ella were already something of an item, that love already bloomed between them, that marriage and a lifetime‘s partnership was already in the air.

I am going to go further than this, because my logic requires that we imagine Max and Ella properly. Max is Welsh, from just outside Cardiff, the only son of a widow who took to Ella the first time they met. “Is this the one?” she asked Max on the phone at the end of November, “I hope so”, replied Max, “because we’re practically engaged”.

Ella’s family - observant Jews - were less enthusiastic. We’ll come to that later. In any case there is some ambivalence about such a match - an ambivalence that Ella is aware of. But nobody quite articulates the unease that may be felt at the prospect that Ella will “marry out”. It’s just there.

Then she goes to Limmud. And it has a profound effect upon her; seeing all the stalls and attending all the sessions mentioned by Bryan - experiencing all that richness, spiritual comfort and sense of belonging. And meeting all those acceptable young men who her family will be delighted for her to marry. Up she gets, makes her speech - clocked by Bryan - and then, on the train back to Radlett figures out how she’s going to tell Max.

And what about Max? What does a pro-Max Bryan have to say concerning Ella’s decision? Which comes down to, “I’m sorry Max. I know I said I loved you, but I’m afraid that I can’t marry you because you’re not Jewish”. It isn’t even that the poor lad is a Montague. He isn’t. It’s just that he isn’t a Capulet. Imagine his tears, his mother’s concern, their sense of……..I’d better stop this before my keyboard shorts out.

Ella has, of course, been saved for the faith and thus, perhaps, begun her journey away from the “fringes of Judaism”, back to its centre - wherever that is. Not far from Bryan, I imagine. Max, we don’t care about. Let the Welsh take care of him.

And if we are consoled by the thought that the ancient certainties will be strengthened that tiny bit by Ella’s return to the tribal fold, then maybe we should allow that somewhere there should be a Catholic Limmud, a Lutheran Limmud, a Yorkshire Limmud, after which pleasant, thoughtful men can reassure their doubtful colleagues that it all goes to show that there are plenty of nice Catholic men, plenty of nice Muslim girls, plenty of nice Hindu women, plenty of decent white boys, to mean that we don‘t have to take up with goys, Prods, Schwartz’s and (of course) Jews. If we each keep to our own, we may be able to keep alive the old religions, the old ways, the traditions, the faith, the race.

I can’t argue with the desire to preserve a much loved way of life, though - as I have written before - it does strike me as odd that a people so fixated on the possible loss of a culture should also be so concerned to keep others from appreciating it from the inside. The whole thing begins to look more like an exercise in exclusion than conservation.

And just one final point. Being on the fringes is as much and as good a place to be as anywhere else.

Comments

[Inna]

David,

I don't think your story works. If Ella really did love Max, she would never have allowed a single conference (of strangers, let us recall) to sway her decision to marry him. I suspect that in actuality Ella is a teenager who (in the end) will marry whomever she wishes; that there was no Max; that marriage for her was, in fact, a theoretical but a theoretical she used to provoke the older members of her family.

Why do I suspect all this?

Because I know many such Ellas.

As for Bryan--I feel a bit sorry for him. He thinks he is doing soething to preserve an ancient way of life but all he is doing is giving the Ellas of this world a way to get their families "off of their backs".

Regards,

Inna

[Shuggy]

"The whole thing begins to look more like an exercise in exclusion than conservation."

I don't really think so. One hears the phrase 'marrying out' quite a lot in my part of the world (west of Scotland) and it has nothing to do with Judaism. It's not about exclusion because when someone 'marry's out', the fear is a convert won't be gained but that a member - and the future prospect of more members - will be lost. It's bound to be a feature of ecclesia's that tend to depend on procreation, rather than conversion, for their growth. I'm not saying it doesn't have problems but I don't think it's exclusive in quite the way you're suggesting.

[Jonathon Fewer]

Marriage is difficult enough without having to navigate differences of faith, especially when children come along.

Unless it is well understood whose faith takes precidence, and in what faith the children will be raised, inter-faith marriages are even more difficult than intra-faith marriages.

[Paul]

Dear David,

I am amazed to read your assertion that, "no-one can be close to marriage - let alone inter-marriage - purely in the abstract (as in “I think I‘ll get married this year, better find someone”)."

There are many people to whom marriage doesn't just happen. Many people decide that they want to get married, and then go about finding an appropriate spouse. Presumably they have some criteria in mind, which perhaps become clearer along the way. To say that someone is "close to intermarriage" simply means that the person in question does not have, among his or her criteria, commitment to Judaism.

There can of course be sad situations in which two people develop a relationship, but one of them becomes clearer about his or her own commitments along the way, with the consequence that the relationship is broken off and the other person is heartbroken. This happens all the time. But are you suggesting that it would it be better to stick to the relationship no matter what? How much unhappiness would result from that decision? Or do you think that only some commitments to leading a certain way of life matter? Would you be feel differently if Ella decided that she did not want to marry Max because it became clear to her that she was deeply committed to a life of environmental activitsm, a commitment that she knew Max lacked or would oppose?

You say, "If we each keep to our own, we may be able to keep alive the old religions, the old ways, the traditions, the faith, the race." The use of the word "race" is inflammatory and apparently unjustified. Jews come from many ethnic backgrounds and do not constitute a race in any meaningful sense -- if there is one. Though I have not read Bryan's letter, you say nothing to support the suggestion that he is a racist or that, in general, Jews who desire the continuation of the way of life to which they are committed are racist. There is no reasonable analogy between marrying only those who are of your own race and marrying only those who share your fundamental life-commitments.

Your article does not take the possibility of commitment to a Jewish way of life seriously. The insinuation that such a commitment is racist -- or at least analogous to racism -- is outrageous. If you didn't intend such an insinuation, then I suggest that you say so explicitly.

Yours,
Paul

[bruschettaboy]

[Jews come from many ethnic backgrounds and do not constitute a race in any meaningful sense]

I would have thought that "matrilineal descent from Abraham" is a pretty meaningful sense, and the Race Relations Act 1977 agrees with me; Judaism and Sikhism are both considered to be ethnicities as well as religions. So does the constitution of the State of Israel now I come to think about it, because the right of residency in Israel for people who weren't born there is based on an ethnic criterion, not a religious one. There is a pretty big clue here from the fact that the Jewish religion does not proselytise; I am sure I could find about a thousand people in China who would like to share the traditions and way of life of Judaism, but that would not make them into Jews. It is hard to see how there could be a meaningful argument about "marrying out" otherwise.

I am by no means sure that David A is on the right side of this argument, but he is surely correct to say that it is fundamentally an argument about race.

[Paul Sorene]

If my mother would have read that JC article six years ago she'd have pinned it to her magnetic noticeboard, below Balfour's speech about the need for a Jewish homeland, and hoped I'd look at it and see the light. She'd then have moaned about the ruddy fromers.

[Inna]

Jonathan writes: "Marriage is difficult enough without having to navigate differences of faith..."

Jonathan, granted I have nothing to compare my (one and only) marriage (to a non-Jew) to but I am not at all sure I agree.

Marriage is indeed difficult and wonderful at the same time but my husband and I seem to get on by respecting one another.

Indeed, I can't imagine being married to anyone else.

Regards,

Inna